


Inside Down Upside Out

by snowzone5



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Adult non-explicit sex, Bittersweet, Deep love, F/M, History, Longing, Love, Mike swears a lot in his entries, Mileven, Science Fiction Adventure, Soulmates, Swearing, Time Travel, Time concepts, True Love, time au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowzone5/pseuds/snowzone5
Summary: Mike, Lucas, and  Dustin are looing for Will, They find Eleven... and Eleven hands Mike a special pair of goggles. This is the story of Mike's incredible journey to be with Eleven.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair
Comments: 13
Kudos: 6





	Inside Down Upside Out

_ I love her. _

_ Eleven. _

_ But sometimes I wish I’d never put the clepsydra on. _

_ They say that whenever you have a long and complicated story to tell you just start at the beginning. _

_ That’s the problem. I don’t know which beginning I should be using. Well, that’s not entirely true. I should probably be telling the events in the order they happened to me. Not the order which they are now. I don’t even know what that order is anymore.  _

_ Eleven said I have folded myself, and that I just need to unfold myself to get to her again. _

_ Easier said than done. _

_ First things first. Eleven from the clepsydra said I should keep a journal because things will get confusing. So that’s why I’m writing all this down and why you get to read it. Second, I’m taking a bit of a break and writing this in 2020. _

_ I’m a bit of a history fan. Got that way after watching the  _ Voyagers! with the actor that almost looks like me.

Ok, not a bit of a fan. I got really good at history. Really good. My history teacher said that I knew more than he did. 

So learning new history is not a big thing. But you find out things you really wish didn’t happen. So to take some time to myself I picked the year 2020

_ Probably the worse fucking year to pick to do that. _

_ If you are reading this in that year, well, you already know. But if you are reading this earlier, or even way later. Let me tell you: _

_ Real estate guy is president. How the fuck did  _ that _ happen? Some disease has practically shut down the world, India has three times the population of the US but some how their cases haven’t caught up to ours. Not that it’s the real estate guy’s fault, idiot that he is. I was watching a TV news program where he actually told people they could inject Javex to get rid of it. _

_ No. Seriously. I shit you not. I actually  _ heard _ him say that. As Bugs Bunny would say. ‘What a maroon’ _

_ Well, in this case orange. Enough of that. This year is fucked. I’m not going to stay here long. Just taking a breather, like I said. _

_ Ok, let’s just start with that night. That was the very first time I saw her. Coincidentally it was the first and only time I fell in love. _

_ The guys and I, I called us  _ The Party. Me,  _ Will Byers, Dustin Henderson, and Lucas Sinclair. We were playing a Dungeon and Dragons campaign I had written, well, heavily modified from one of the TSR modules.  _

_ I laugh now, but when Will had to make an important roll and dropped the dice, we were scrambling around trying to find where it dropped, we would all witness the result. _

_ My mom called me from upstairs, and when she said ‘ _ You’ve been playing for ten hours?’ _ I realized just how much we were into and played the game. We were nerds. No girlfriends. Nobody to drag us shopping. Nobody to kiss either. That’s the downside. In case you were wondering what it’s like to be a nerd. _

_ We didn’t find out till the next day that Will had disappeared. This was Hawkins. How hard could it be to find him? _

_ It was pissing down raining that night. We grabbed out bikes and went searching around Mirkwood. Real place, we made up the name. _

_ We didn’t find Will. We found her.  _

_ She was wet, cold, and really scared. I thought my heart would break. What set of circumstances has to take place where a 12 year old girl is cold and scared in the middle of the woods, wearing only a long t-shirt? _

_ Fucked up circumstances, that’s what kind. _

_ I rushed over and put my rain jacket around her. She looked at me with the prettiest eyes I think I’ve ever seen, gave me a little smile. She handed me the goggles. I think she was meant to. I think that’s where it really started for me. _

_ Back in my basement I gave her some warm clothes just out of the dryer. The way she touched her cheek to them almost made me cry. She never had much on before. I wondered if she escaped from some lunatic, if she had a really bad experience in captivity. It was hard to think about that something like that actually happened, but it was showing up in the news over and over again. _

_ In 2020, the shit that’s gone down is unbelievable.  _

_ Almost 20 years since I started and the world is about as fucked up as it can get. In ‘88 I was looking for something to read and picked up an issue of Isaac Asimov’s magazine. Seems to me I saw it in a magazine rack back in 82 or 83. Anyway in this issue is a story by an author named Connie Willis, called ‘Ado’. I almost plssed myself laughing. In 2020 we were so close to that story it wasn’t even a satire anymore. _

_ I’m writing this down in 2020, but this  _ internet _ thing has been around for home users anyway, since about ‘93. It’s much bigger in this year. You can probably find the book it’s published in. _

_ So back to what happened. She tried to take over her wet t-shirt. Ok I know that sounds perverted, but it was obvious to me that maybe she hadn’t really been out in the world. _

_ So I guided her to the bathroom for some privacy, I asked the other guys to leave. They were unsure of me keeping a girl in the basement. I didn’t know it then, but maybe she’d been kept in captivity and it wasn’t such a good idea. _

_ While she was changing, curiosity got the better of me and I slipped on the goggles. _

_ I was not expecting a video to start. Well looked like a video, I think nowadays they call it a hologram. It was a pretty girl, woman I don’t know. She looked about 25 she looked a little familiar. Could quite put my finger on it at the time. _

[Ah. There you are Mike. Ok. My name is Eleven, you’ll meet me very soon. I need to tell you right now. We are soulmates. We love each other beyond time. I need to tell you a few things.

First. Please. Please… Please! Make your way back to me. Promise me. We belong together… and… just promise me Mike. I will know that you promised..]

_ She’s crying. She said she loved me. She’s a lot older than me so that’s kind of weird. _

[ _ What you are wearing is a clepsydra. The goggles version, no water, but the glass and frame… it’s a little steampunk looking. But that’s the chameleon circuit. Look all that up if you don’t know what it all means. Anyway, keep it with you always. Wear it. All the time. Please? You don’t have to have it covering your eyes, just say it’s a party thing and when enough time passes, nobody will bother to question it. They will make fun of you Mike. Just smile, because you will know a lot more of what’s going on than they do. _

_ This message has been recorded live. I wanted it to be personal. _

_ The timepiece you are wearing is very, VERY advanced Mike. There is nanotechnology involved, you don’t know what that is yet, but what you are wearing knows, it is absolutely loaded with everything you need to know. Including history, and I know you like history. Maybe you should keep a journal?] _

_ It looks like she’s smiling right  _ at _ me. Why does she look so familiar? _

[ _ These goggles are equipped with a very advanced AI, that’s artificial intelligence. You’ll see what I mean very soon. It’s custom, usually Tryn is the standard. I had it replaced with me. Mike. I put my heart and soul into the AI. My anger and frustration, my love and devotion for you. It’s all here Mike. You just have to trust me, ok? I also put some surprised in here, some good, some maybe not so good. But they are all meant to get you back to me. I promise. Ok, I will end this recording now. The voice you hear next will be my AI, it’s very accurate it will seem like you are talking to me… even when you are REALLY _ talking to me. I love you Mike. Keep that knowledge in your heart. I love you.]

_ So that’s what I heard. And then the girl came out of the bathroom, I’d made a blanket fort for her, she sat in it and looked at me. I asked for her name, she showed me her tattoo and pointed to herself. _

_ Immediately it hit me. The girl from the goggles. I think I covered it up ok when I said, “Well, I’m Mike, short for Michael, maybe we can call you El? Short for Eleven.” _

_ Oh my god. She looked at me with those eyes, I thought I would cry. She was so pretty. I think I covered it up ok. I think I fell in love right then and there. I really do.  _

_ When she said, ‘night Mike.’ _

_ The trust in her eyes did it for me. I dedicated myself to making her happy. She had a tattoo of her experiment number for fuck’s sake. I mean I obviously didn’t know it then. I didn’t find out till later. But I was determined. _

_ I lay in bed, I put the goggles on and said “El?” _

[You’ve met me.]

_ I swear, I could hear the smile in her voice. _

[That’s good. We are just going to let things progress a little bit. Is there anything you’d like to know?]

_ Am I talking to the AI? You sound so real. _

_ Let me be clear. I just  _ thought _ this. I didn’t have to speak out loud. _

[ _ Yes, the AI. but Mike it’s more real than Tryn, or most commercial AI’s. This is one from the girl who loves you. You need to know that I’m scared and way out of my element. If you want you can go down and cuddle with me. _ ]

_ Really? _

[ _ Yes Mike. Really. I need that comfort now. Knowing that someone cares about me. Please?] _

_ I went down to the basement lifted up the blanket.  _

_ “Is anything wrong?” she said. _

_ No, I’m just going to cuddle to help you keep warm… and safe. Her smile was all I needed. _

_ I got into the blanket fort. She snuggled up to me. Her face nuzzled up to my neck as the storm raged on. _

_ Let me tell you. Having a pretty girl you are really sure you are in love with, snuggle with you, her face pressed up against your neck. Trusting you. It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world. _

_ Ok, I’ll admit that I pulled the goggles over my eyes before going to sleep. _

[ _ Thank you Mike. That’s why I love you. I’m not very good with words at that point, but it’s exactly how I feel. I think I fell in love with you that night. Tonight.] _

_ I put my arm around her tighter, she snuggled in even closer. _

_ Oh my god. I love her. _

_ I love Eleven. Even back in ‘83 _


End file.
